A Yankee in the Trenches eBook

When I saw that bomb coming, I bunted at it like Ty
Cobb trying to sacrifice. It was the only thing
to do. I choked my bat and poked at the bomb
instinctively, and by sheer good luck fouled the thing
over the parapet. It exploded on the other side.

We had found two more machine guns and were planting
Stokeses under them when we heard the Lewises giving
the recall signal. A good gunner gets so he can
play a tune on a Lewis, and the device is frequently
used for signals. This time he thumped out the
old one—­“All policemen have big feet.”
Rat-a-tat-tat—­tat, tat.

It didn’t come any too soon.

As we scrambled over the parapet we saw a big party
of Germans coming up from the second trenches.
They were out of the communication trenches and were
coming across lots. There must have been fifty
of them, outnumbering us five or six to one.

We were out of bombs, Jerry had lost his rifle, and
mine had no “ammo.” Blofeld fired
the last shot from his revolver and, believe me, we
hooked it for home.

We had been in their trenches just three and a half
minutes.

Just as we were going through their wire a bomb exploded
near and got Jerry in the head. We dragged him
in and also the two men that had been clicked on the
first fire. Jerry got Blighty on his wound, but
was back in two months. The second time he wasn’t
so lucky. He lies now somewhere in France with
a wooden cross over his head.

Did that muddy old trench look good when we tumbled
in? Oh, Boy! The staff was tickled to pieces
and complimented us all. We were sent out of
the lines that night and in billets got hot food,
high-grade “fags”, a real bath, a good
stiff rum ration, and letters from home.

Next morning we heard the results of the raid.
One party of twelve never returned. Besides that
we lost seven men killed. The German loss was
estimated at about one hundred casualties, six machine
guns and several dug-outs destroyed, and one mine shaft
put out of business. We also brought back documents
of value found by one party in an officer’s
dug-out.

Blofeld got the military cross for the night’s
work, and several of the enlisted men got the D.C.M.

Altogether it was a successful raid. The best
part of it was getting back.

CHAPTER IV

A FEW DAYS’ REST IN BILLETS

After the strafing we had given Fritz on the raid,
he behaved himself reasonably well for quite a while.
It was the first raid that had been made on that sector
for a long time, and we had no doubt caught the Germans
off their guard.

Anyhow for quite a spell afterwards they were very
“windy” and would send up the “Very”
lights on the slightest provocation and start the
“typewriters” a-rattling. Fritz was
right on the job with his eye peeled all the time.